Pricing Change
New pricing for orders of material from this site will come into place shortly. Charges for supply of digital images, digitisation on demand, prints and licensing will be altered.
Upcoming Maintenance
Please be advised that this website will undergo scheduled maintenance on the following dates:
Thursday, 9 January: 11:00 AM - 3:00 PM
Thursday, 23 January: 11:00 AM - 3:00 PM
Thursday, 30 January: 11:00 AM - 3:00 PM
During these times, some functionality such as image purchasing may be temporarily unavailable. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.
Wandel
Temporary Camp (Roman)
Site Name Wandel
Classification Temporary Camp (Roman)
Canmore ID 47371
Site Number NS92NW 16
NGR NS 944 267
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/47371
- Council South Lanarkshire
- Parish Lamington And Wandel
- Former Region Strathclyde
- Former District Clydesdale
- Former County Lanarkshire
NS92NW 16 944 267.
(for fortlet see NS92NW 11)
(A: NS 9443 2681; B: 9440 2658). Crop marks and slight surface-traces visible on air photographs reveal the presence of a Roman fortlet (A) and temporary camp (B) at Wandel.
The fortlet which occupies the summit of a low knoll in arable ground about 410 m SW of Wandel farmhouse, has been severely denuded by cultivation. No trace of the work is at present visible on the surface, but probing and a limited excavation carried out by the Commission's officers in 1966 showed that it was trapezoidal on plan and lay only 3.4m SE of the Roman road. It measured 33.2m from NE to SW by 31.4m transversely within a single ditch, which except on the NW, where it apparently merged with the drainage-ditch bordering the road, had been reduced to a mere heel approximately 1.5m in greatest width and not more than 0.5m deep. The entrance could not be located with certainty, but it presumably lay in the centre of the NW side. Although nothing was found during the excavation to date the fortlet, its dimensions within the ditch approximate so closely to those of the fortlet at Redshaw Burn (NT01SW 2) as to make it probable that the two are contemporary.
The temporary camp is situated in level pasture immediately to the S of the fortlet. A portion of the rampart, comprising 140 m of the E side, the rounded SE corner, and 30m of the S side, is still visible, and a section was cut across it in 1970. This showed that the rampart measured 2.3m by 0.5m and consisted solely of upcast material from an external ditch 3.4m wide by 1.1m deep. Faint crop-markings on air photographs (nos BEB 81 and 83) indicate that the E side was continued for another 80m to the N and on the date of the visit, what appeared to be a cross-section of the ditch was exposed in the bank of a water-course about 140m W of the SE corner. The position of the other two sides has not been determined.
RCAHMS 1978, visited 1970
There are no ground surface remains of the fortlet in a field now under grass. The remains of the temporary camp, however, are clearly visible in pasture land and are as described by RCAHMS.
Surveyed at 1/2500.
Visited by OS (BS) 3 August 1978
Temporary camp totally encloses the presumed Antonine fort; camp possibly of Flavian date and may form part of the Cornhill-Carlops series.
G S Maxwell and D R Wilson 1987
Geophysical Survey (February 1990)
Detailed survey of several sites in the area prior to the M74 motorway.
Publication Account (17 December 2011)
Discovered in 1961 by St Joseph from the air, the camp at Wandel lies on gently sloping ground on the Roman road on the east bank of the River Clyde. Parts of two sides have been recorded. It encloses a small fortlet of presumed but unconfirmed Antonine date (RCAHMS 1978a: 37) and probably crosses the Roman road, possibly suggesting that it may be earlier than both. Some 390m of the ESE side have been recorded, together with the south-eastern corner angle and 45m of the SSW side. The southern stretches of camp defence survive as an upstanding earthwork, the northern parts as cropmarks. Excavations by RCAHMS on an upstanding section revealed that the rampart survived 2.3m in width and 0.5m in height, above a ditch that was 3.4m in width and 1.1m in depth (RCAHMS 1978a: 136).
R H Jones.
